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Over the years, electric utilities have piloted prodigious numbers of promising technologies, and yet they have deployed only a precious few. Many more technologies are ready for prime-time today but utilities and regulators will only adopt them if they are shown to be locally advantageous.
Inter-communicating devices and integrated Web-based services will open exciting opportunities. Smart appliances in smarter buildings will be linked in grids that can be more tightly monitored and regulated in real time. New communications protocols and software applications of fundamental importance are showing the way.
Though utilities use only a fraction of the broadband capacity they install to support smart grid applications, it is relatively easy to justify investing in that capacity. If utilities were to lease fiber optic capacity to providers of general broadband services, companies in both sectors would benefit, and so would their customers.
The Galvin Electricity Initiative is developing a seal of approval for smart grid projects modeled on the LEED program for green buildings and the EPA’s Energy Star program. The idea is to encourage project developers to keep customer satisfaction front and center.
A monthly publication, the IEEE Smart Grid Newsletter features practical and timely technical information and forward-looking commentary on smart grid developments and deployments around the world. Designed to foster greater understanding and collaboration between diverse stakeholders, the newsletter brings together experts, thought-leaders, and decision-makers to exchange information and discuss issues affecting the evolution of the smart grid.
John Kelly, as deputy director of the Galvin Electricity Initiative, leads research into improved electricity governance models and the development of ... Read more
Dominique Guinard is a researcher at the Institute for Pervasive Computing of ETH Zurich. Previously, he was research associate for SAP ... Read more
Michael Kennedy is principal analyst at ACG Research. He has helped electrical utilities develop networking strategies ... Read more
Thomas Bourgeois is a nationally recognized authority on economic and policy issues related to distributed generation, combined heat and ... Read more
William Pentland is a senior energy systems analyst at the Pace Energy and Climate Center. A graduate of Stanford Law School, he writes a blog on ... Read more
